


Dead End

by en passant (corinthian)



Series: Another War [4]
Category: Fate/Grand Order
Genre: Gen, Sibling Incest, some gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-11
Updated: 2016-04-11
Packaged: 2018-06-01 13:28:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6521680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corinthian/pseuds/en%20passant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A bad end for the <i>Another War</i> Holy Grail.</p>
<p>Corruption never tastes good to anyone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dead End

**Author's Note:**

> indulgence with a light sprinkling of guro.

For some reason he had expected the Grail to be a cup. Perhaps, it had been, once. But the pulsating blob of stretched pink flesh, sickening distended veins and dripping pus was not even close to ‘holy’ or a ‘grail’. Some part of him withers as the Grail expands and bursts and a torrent of sludge washes over him. And Karna.

He’s filled with terrible calm, even when the contract between him and his Servant — tenuous, but alive with their shared power — breaks and is severed. Fate resets itself, punishes his hubris and he understands the world yet again.

With clarity: if Karna will be so pure and pious, then Arjuna will be his opposite.

The mud fills his lungs and his ears and all Arjuna can hear is the roaring of magic and long dead spirits. (He is certain) it can’t corrode him, corrupt him, change him. He is, will always be and has always been, unattainably bright, brilliant silver, victorious and ideal.

The Grail’s torrent recedes and Arjuna breathes in (he believes) no different than he ever was before.

* * *

Karna has become real. It’s a consequence of the Grail, a corruption, a flaw. Arjuna thinks on it, as they stand side by side outside the church that burns down. It’s a bit ridiculous, since a Servant is truly “real” in the same way that a flash of lightning or the heat of a fired bullet can be considered real.

But those are experiences and phenomenons.

He is not a Servant anymore. He is not a Heroic Spirit. He is flesh and blood, and blood. Servants, as Arjuna understands them, are representations of the soul, their costume and appearance, weapon, Noble Phantasm and basic existence are a specific representation of the hero.

But now none of that matters.

“You’ve become more honest, in appearance,” Arjuna says, out loud. The black of Karna’s clothes has burned away, leaving behind only the gold that sticks to his skin — still white, now blistered and pink where the metal touches. What had been the flamboyant cape is left behind as speckling and welts across his back and right arm. And, of course, the necklace is gone and shows the jagged scar. It could very well be the summary of their relationship, that scar.

“Arjuna.” Karna’s voice, however, hasn’t changed.

He hasn’t hit his growth spurt, yet. At fifteen, Arjuna is still shorter than many of his peers, but he doesn’t feel the height difference. Karna who had been so magnificent to him only hours ago is now just a man. Arjuna, who had only been a teenager hours ago, has reclaimed who he was as well.

They are on even footing, now. And yet — something is missing. (The contract they had was severed.) Arjuna frowns. No more seals remain on his hand, not even the faded remains of used seals.

“Our brief alliance has dissolved,” Arjuna announces. A part of him that is still very young and still very hopeful wants to ask if there is still a way to change their fate. The part of him that may have wished for Karna to stay by his side.

There’s nothing that ties them together but a bloody end, now. (A thousand layers of golden armor, nine-hundred and ninety-nine times, it’s been stripped — )

“It’s still your choice.” Karna points out, as if he could read Arjuna’s mind.

That’s too much. 

“Are you saying that you’ll follow my orders, even like this? You’re no longer a Servant.”

They should be fighting. Arjuna’s hands itch to pick up his bow.

“Then, the time has come,” it could be a question. Arjuna can’t read the tone of voice and he can’t read Karna’s face. He knows, though, that acceptance and vague resignation. Karna accepts him as a Master, as an enemy, as a brother and as a foe.

Arjuna punches him, first. His fist connects with Karna’s stomach — he’s just a man now, not a Servant and not some revered hero. The forced exhale and short cough gives Arjuna confidence, even as the heel of Karna’s hand sweeps up into Arjuna’s chin, his other elbow jabbing into his ribs.

He never did school sports and he never learned martial arts, but Arjuna — _Arjuna_ — remembers combat, both war and wrestling. Just as he remembers dance and music that he never learned in this life.

Karna’s knuckles split his lip against his teeth, Arjuna catches his arm and pushes it outward, bending the elbow joint harshly. Karna’s fingers, too soft and too weirdly textured, too burned, briefly claw at Arjuna’s neck. Arjuna digs a finger in under the gold line on Karna’s right side — it’s not proper combat rules, more akin to hair pulling but he does it anyway — and yanks.

The gold peels back, like lifting a stamp off of adhesive paper. The gold peels and lifts skin and flesh with it. Karna makes a soft whine, as if he’s surprised by how oddly painful the sensation is as well. 

Arjuna realizes, the gold had not been laid onto Karna’s skin in delicate lines, but sunk into him by half an inch. The idea angers him more than his humiliation. He rips the entire section off and shoves against Karna’s chest to knock him over.

The gold in his hand is warm, the hunks of flesh that still cling to it make him feel ill. The blood keeps flowing out of Karna’s side and he can’t escape Karna’s still calm gaze. Calm but heated, because Karna has always met him as strongly as possible. They have been eternal rivals for so long.

“I’ve decided.” Arjuna’s voice shakes, just a little. He slows his breathing, drops the metal to the ground and leans down over Karna. “I don’t want our contract to end.”

“Is that so, Arjuna.” Karna’s voice doesn’t shake, his fingers thread through Arjuna’s hair, lightly. 

“I bind you to my side again as my servant.” Arjuna kisses the gem in Karna’s chest. He sets his teeth against the top of the gem, where it fuses with Karna’s skin, and tugs just enough to draw blood. He only lets some of the blood enter his mouth before lifting his head to make eye contact with Karna. “My servant.” He repeats again.

A contract that has nothing to do with the Holy Grail War.

“And if I choose to refuse?” Karna asks.

“Why would you do that?”

“Are you happy like this? Being tainte—” Arjuna doesn’t let Karna complete the question. He crudely shoves his hand into Karna’s mouth, three fingers and the tip of his thumb.

“Shut up,” the command comes out automatically until he can calm himself again. “Don’t say such useless things.”

It’s a unique feeling, because in this lifetime (and in many others) he’s never done this. He can feel Karna’s tongue under his fingers, the wet saliva that spills around his hand and leaks down the corners of Karna’s mouth as he swallows, says nothing. Arjuna pushes his fingers in deeper, feels the constricting space and roof of Karna’s mouth. He can feel Karna’s whole body tense and retch.

It isn’t unpleasant.

Arjuna pulls his hand back. He wipes his moist fingers across Karna’s chest, running his fingers over the embedded stones, then up to the scar around Karna’s neck. 

“Let’s renew our contract, then. Your life is mine, Karna.”

Karna grabs Arjuna’s wrist. It isn’t a grip meant to stop him, but one to ground him. It’s Karna’s even, accepting look, that strikes Arjuna at his core. Resonance.

“So confident already, as if I’ve accepted this you as a Master.”

“Why wouldn’t you? This is still ‘Arjuna’.”

“Hm, are you the one who called for me?” Karna’s reply is not what Arjuna wants to hear. It’s not quite, _are you my Master_ and instead, asks a very different kind of question.

Arjuna traces his fingers down both of Karna’s sides. He feels the gold still fused to the skin on one, and picks at the scabbing blood on the other. Both of his hands end up on the edge of Karna’s hips, where even more golden armor lays flush with his skin. (A thousand layers of golden armor, he remembers.)

“You were called forward for my purposes,” Arjuna turns the idea around. He digs his fingers underneath the edge of the armor. His fingernail twists and catches on the sensitive skin, pries the armor up enough that he can push inside. Karna inhales sharply, unprepared for the invasion. “Servant Karna.”

He spreads his fingers underneath the gold plating, tears through the connective tissue. Like stripping the bark from a tree, peeling the shell from a crustacean or tearing a stiff bandage from an open wound. 

“Arjuna — “

“And then, now, you’ve been remade for me too, it seems.” Arjuna muses, he pulls his fingers out and looks at the blood on his hand. Strange. It doesn’t seem like enough. Somewhere, inside him, he feels that he shouldn’t be doing this, but alongside that is also a forbidden feeling.

When was the last time he experienced anything like joy?

“ — is that what you see?”

(If Karna was born first, isn’t it the other way around?)

Arjuna doesn’t answer that. Instead he leans down, a motion much like bowing his head, and traces the slit his fingers made with his tongue. Karna’s blood tastes too familiar in his mouth, but the sharpness of the armor and the torn edge of Karna’s skin makes his stomach churn. He shouldn’t be doing this.

Karna’s hands are in his hair again, but instead of pulling him away, it’s like a soft gentle pat that Arjuna can barely feel. Karna, who so readily meets him in battle, will meet him in this as well. He wants to laugh. Arjuna bats Karna’s hands away, continues to finger at the gaping wound on Karna’s thighs, drawing his fingers down deep inside, pushing until he can make Karna writhe and grunt with pain.

The blood pools between them and soaks the ground, and Arjuna’s clothes and stains Karna’s skin even more than it already is. They forge a contract of their own making, in the aftermath of the war.

“Your self is under me. My fate is in your sword. In accordance with my will, if you abide by this feeling, this reason, then answer.” Arjuna murmurs, like a prayer.

“Servant, Lancer. True name, Karna.” Karna responds, voice only slightly ragged. 

“I am the one who called for you, Arjuna.” Their contract is complete.


End file.
